WE ARE MOVING.....

The Mainly Reading Book Discussion blog is moving to the Salt Lake City Public Library's new website at: blog.slcpl.org

Happy Reading!

MAY BOOK DISCUSSION

Please join us on Saturday, May 7th at 10am in the Main Salt Lake City Public Library (210 East 400 South) to discuss "Ahab's Wife, or the Star-Gazer" by Sena Naslund. This title has been chosen to coincide with Utah Water Week activities.

For those who like to read ahead-- here are our summer titles:
June 4th "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand" by Helen Simonson
July 9th "The Lonely Polygamist" by Barry Udall
August 6th "Nickel and Dimed" OR "Bright-sided" both by Barbara Ehrenreich

For more information, please call the Fiction Desk at 801-322-8131.

"Museum of Innocence" by Orhan Pamuk

The Washington Post - Marie Arana

As familiar as the subject of love might seem, The Museum of Innocence is a startling original. Every turn in the story seems fresh, disquieting, utterly unexpected…The genius of Pamuk's novel is that although it can be read as a simple romance, it is a richly complicated work with subtle and intricate layers. Kemal's descent into love's hell takes him through every level of the social order, past countless neighborhoods of sprawling Istanbul, in a story that spans 30 years…In sum, The Museum of Innocence is a deeply human and humane story. Masterfully translated, spellbindingly told, it is resounding confirmation that Orhan Pamuk is one of the great novelists of his generation. With this book, he literally puts love into our hands.

"The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein

From Publishers Weekly:

If you've ever wondered what your dog is thinking, Stein's third novel offers an answer. Enzo is a lab terrier mix plucked from a farm outside Seattle to ride shotgun with race car driver Denny Swift as he pursues success on the track and off. Denny meets and marries Eve, has a daughter, Zoe, and risks his savings and his life to make it on the professional racing circuit. Enzo, frustrated by his inability to speak and his lack of opposable thumbs, watches Denny's old racing videos, coins koanlike aphorisms that apply to both driving and life, and hopes for the day when is life as a dog will be over and he can be reborn a main. When Denny hits an extended rough patch, Enzo remains his most steadfast if silent supporter. Enzo is a reliable companion and a likable enough narrator, thought the string of Denny's bad luck stories strains believability. Much like Denny, however, Stein is able to salvage some dignity from the over-the-top drama.

"The Lacuna" by Barbara Kingsolver

From Publishers Weekly:

Kingsolver's ambitious new novel, her first in nine years (after The Poisonwood Bible), focuses on Harrison William Shepherd, the product of a divorced American father and a Mexican mother. After getting kicked out of his American military academy, Harrison spends his formative years in Mexico in the 1930's in the household of Diego Rivera; his wife, Frida Kahlo; and their houseguest, Leon Trotsky, who is hiding from Soviet assassins. After Trotsky is assassinated, Harrison returns to the U.S., settling in Asheville, N.C., where he becomes an author of historical potboilers (e.g. Vassals of Majesty) and is later investigated as a possible subversive. Narrated in the form of letters, diary entries and newspaper clippings, the novel takes a while to get going, but once it does, it achieves a rare dramatic power that reaches its emotional peak when Harrison wittily and eloquently defends himself before the House Un-American Activities Committee (on the panel is a young Dick Nixon). Employed by the American imagination, is how one character describes Harrison, a term that could apply equally to Kingsolver as she masterfully resurrects a dark period in American history with the assured hand on a true literary artist.